Does Class Size Matter for School Tracking Outcomes after Elementary School? Quasi-Experimental Evidence Using Administrative Panel Data from Germany

Bethlehem A. Argaw and Patrick Puhani
Additional contact information
Bethlehem A. Argaw: Leibniz University of Hannover

No 11208, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use administrative panel data on about a quarter of a million students in the German state of Hesse to estimate the causal effect of class size on school tracking outcomes after elementary school. Our identification strategy relies on the quasi-random assignment of students to different class sizes based on maximum class size rules. In Germany, students are tracked into more or less academic middle school types at about age ten based, to a large extent, on academic achievement in elementary school. We mostly find no or small effects of class size in elementary school on receiving a recommendation or on the actual choice to attend the more academic middle school type. For male students, we find that an increase in class size by 10 students would reduce their chance of attending the higher school track – which more than 40 percent of students attend – by 3 percentage points.

Keywords: administrative data; panel; class size; education production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Economics of Education Review, 2018, 65, 48-57

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp11208.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does class size matter for school tracking outcomes after elementary school? Quasi-experimental evidence using administrative panel data from Germany (2018)
Working Paper: Does Class Size Matter for School Tracking Outcomes After Elementary School? Quasi-Experimental Evidence Using Administrative Panel Data from Germany (2017)
Working Paper: Does Class Size Matter for School Tracking Outcomes After Elementary School? Quasi-Experimental Evidence Using Administrative Panel Data from Germany (2017)
Working Paper: Does Class Size Matter for School Tracking Outcomes After Elementary School? Quasi-Experimental Evidence Using Administrative Panel Data from Germany (2017)
Working Paper: Does Class Size Matter for School Tracking Outcomes After Elementary School? Quasi-Experimental Evidence Using Administrative Panel Data from Germany (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11208

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().